Going Nowhere Fast

April 30, 1985

Q:What was the reason for trying to create a regional transportation authority for Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties?

A: That's simple. It was to grab control of the traffic mess in Central Florida, which has dozens of transportation agencies running off in different directions with no coordination. The point was to have a single agency that could plan, finance, build and operate major road, rail and bus systems in the three-county area.

Q: So what is the Legislature going to do?

A: Not much.

-- Instead of one comprehensive agency, Orlando-area legislators want at least two, maybe more. Toll roads would be off by themselves. Another agency would handle buses and the area's major state roads.

-- Instead of earmarking additional money for the area's pitiful bus system, there would be nothing. That's right, zip. The extra gas tax being talked about would go only for roads.

-- Worse, the area's rapid transit system would be cut out completely. No agency. No money. It would remain somewhere in Never-Never Land. Sometimes it falls under the tri-county bus agency, sometimes it falls under the Orange County Commission and sometimes it comes under regional planners. It has no home even though a private company is coming up with plans for the first mass transit link between Walt Disney World and Orlando's hotel centers.

Add it all up and you find that the so-called superagency wouldn't be so super after all.

It would help with some of the road needs, but that's hardly the way to confront the whole range of transportation problems. It would be able to widen highways and build some other roads. But what about helping with alternatives to more and more asphalt strips? And what about the whole idea of having one -- just one -- agency coordinating all the area's transportation efforts and making sure that the whole system works together? Who will make sure that a new expressway isn't competing with a new rail system? Who will make sure that bus routes connect with rail stops?

What happened to the concept of a real superagency? For starters, blame politics -- Democrats vs. Republicans. For some reason most of the Republican members of the Orlando-area legislative delegation just don't like the idea of a single agency. But they do know that voters are demanding a way out of the traffic jams. But rather than go along with what Orlando's Democratic mayor has proposed, their answer is a halfway solution -- throw more money at the problem but don't use those dollars efficiently by putting highways, toll roads and mass transit under a single agency. In other words, instead of a superagency create a ''wimpagency.''

There's still time to do something that counts, time to put together a transportation authority with clout and money. But that depends on Orlando- area legislators. So far they've offered little more than an excuse. That leaves you stuck in traffic and going nowhere fast.